June 16, 2004
SixApart changes their Licensing Structure
by Liza Sabater
Congratulations to Mena, Ben, Anil and everybody else involved in this process. I got the news about Six Log: Announcing Pricing & Licensing Changes to Movable Type via zonageek: blog: SixApart *DID* get it. The licenses are fair. The pricing is reasonable for personal use. For commercial? Only well established, in the black companies would be able to afford the product, but that's the market you are after anyway.
So on the personal side I think it works. Now on to the public.
Before the blogtercation I seriously considered using MT to start a community site for art blogs? Even with the licensing change, would I use it? Absolute not.
The lesson learned here is that for free culture you need transparency. What the blogtercation has shown me is that a license is a political tool. Now with the Webloggers.com fiasco, licensing structures can be wielded as weapons of mass destruction. I will come back to my part 3 of the blogtercation because there is definitely a pattern to the handling of licenses that needs to be addressed.
In short, open-source is more than ever being pitted against proprietary structures because the software involved is supposed to be social. The way proprietary licenses, in the name of a buck, have been handled has been anything but social.
Open Source is the road to a free online (and maybe offline) culture.
As a good proprietary software for personal use, this new licensing is definitely good. Still, for cultural creatives, warriors and evangelists, the software you use will define your politics. That's why, for a free culture, the way to go is open source. No question about it.
Posted by Liza Sabater in Blogs, Commerce, Copyleft, Copyright, Culture, Open Source, Software, Web
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» Six Apart changes their licensing scheme from Radio Free Blogistan
Six Log: Announcing Pricing & Licensing Changes to Movable Type Personal Edition ($69.95): Up to 5 authors and an unlimited number of weblogs for personal use. This license has been improved allowing the creation of unlimited weblogs. The changes they ... [More...]
Found inJune 16, 2004 01:28 PM
